That night, however, was the last of our “sea-sorrows.” After floating about during the latter hours of darkness, under the land, but uncertain where to disembark, we made at 7 A.M., on the 11th May, Wafanya, our former station in ill-famed Urundi. Tired and cramped by the night’s work, we pitched tents, and escaping from the gaze of the insolent and intrusive crowd, we retired to spend a few hours in sleep.
I was suddenly aroused by Mabruki, who, rushing into the tent, thrust my sword into my hands, and exclaimed that the crews were scrambling into their boats. I went out and found everything in dire confusion. The sailors hurrying here and there, were embarking their mats and cooking-pots, some were in violent parley with Kannena, whilst a little knot was carrying a man, mortally wounded, down to the waters of the Lake. I saw at once that the affair was dangerous. On these occasions the Wajiji, whose first impulse is ever flight, rush for safety to their boats and push off, little heeding whom or what they leave behind. We therefore hurried in without delay.
When both crews had embarked, and no enemy appeared, Kannena persuaded them to reland, and proving to them their superior force, induced them to demand, at the arrow’s point, satisfaction of Kanoni, the chief, for the outrage committed by his subjects. During our sleep a drunken man—almost all these disturbances arise from fellows who have the “vin méchant”—had rushed from the crowd of Warundi, and, knobstick in hand, had commenced dealing blows in all directions. Ensued a general mêlée. Bombay, when struck, called to the crews to arm. The Goanese, Valentine, being fear-crazed, seized my large “Colt” and probably fired it into the crowd; at all events, the cone struck one of our own men below the right pap, and came out two inches to the right of the backbone. Fortunately for us he was a slave, otherwise the situation would have been desperate. As it was, the crowd became violently excited, one man drew his dagger upon Valentine, and with difficulty I dissuaded Kannena from killing him. As the crew had ever an eye to the “main chance,” food, they at once confiscated three goats, our store for the return voyage, cut their throats, and spitted the meat upon their spears:—thus the lamb died and the wolf dined, and the innocent suffered and the plunderer was joyed, the strong showed his strength and the weak his weakness, according to the usual formula of this sublunary world.
Whilst Kannena was absent, on martial purposes intent, I visited the sole sufferer in the fray, and after seeing his wound washed, I forbade his friends to knead the injured muscles, as they were doing, and to wrench his right arm from side to side. A cathartic seemed to have a beneficial effect. On the second day of his accident he was able to rise. But these occurrences in wild countries always cause long troubles. Kannena, who obtained from Sultan Kanoni, as blood-money, a small girl and a large sheep, declared that the man might die, and insisted upon my forthwith depositing, in case of such contingency, eight cloths, which, should the wound not prove fatal, would be returned. The latter clause might have been omitted; in these lands, nescit cloth missa reverti. As we were about to leave Ujiji, Kannena claimed for the man’s subsistence forty cloths,—or as equivalent, three slaves and six cloths—which also it was necessary to pay. A report was afterwards spread that the wretch had sunk under his wound. Valentine heard the intelligence with all that philosophy which distinguishes his race when mishaps occur to any but self. His prowess, however, cost me forty-eight dollars, here worth at least £100 in England. Still I had reason to congratulate myself that matters had not been worse. Had the victim been a Mjiji freeman, the trouble, annoyances, and expense would have been interminable. Had he been a Mrundi, we should have been compelled to fight our way, through a shower of arrows, to the boats; war would have extended to Ujiji, and “England,” as usual, would have had to pay the expenses. When Said bin Salim heard at Kazeh a distorted account of this mishap—of course it was reported that “Haji Abdullah” killed the man—he hit upon a notable device. Lurinda, the headman of Gungu, had often begged the Arab to enter into “blood-brotherhood” with him, and this had Said bin Salim pertinaciously refused, on religious grounds, to do. When informed that battle and murder were in the wind, he at once made fraternity with Lurinda, hoping to derive protection from his spear. His terrors afterwards persuaded him to do the same with Kannena: indeed at that time he would have hailed a slave as “Ndugu yango!” (my brother!)
When Kannena returned successful from his visit to Kanoni, we prepared to leave Wafanya. The fierce rain and the nightly drizzle detained us, however, till the next morning. On the 11th May we paddled round the southern point of Wafanya Bay to Makimoni, a little grassy inlet, where the canoes were defended from the heavy surf.
After this all was easy. We rattled paddles on the 12th May, as we entered our “patrie,” Nyasanga. The next night was spent in Bangwe Bay. We were too proud to sneak home in the dark; we had done something deserving a Certain Cross, we were heroes, braves of braves; we wanted to be looked at by the fair, to be howled at by the valiant. Early on the morning of the 13th May we appeared with shots, shouts, and a shocking noise, at the reed-lined gap of sand that forms the ghaut of Kawele. It was truly a triumphal entrance. All the people of that country-side had collected to welcome the crew, women and children, as well as men, pressed waist-deep into the water to receive friend and relative with becoming affection:—the gestures, the clamour, and the other peculiarities of the excited mob I must really leave to the reader’s imagination; the memory is too much for me.
But true merit is always modest; it aspires to Honor, not honours. The Wagungu, or whites, were repeatedly “called for.” I broke, however, through the sudant, strident, hircine throng, and regaining, with the aid of Riza’s strong arm, the old Tembe, was salaamed to by the expectant Said bid Salim and the Jemadar. It felt like a return home. But I had left, before my departure, with my Arab chargé-d’affaires, four small loads of cloth, and on inspecting the supplies there remained only ten shukkah. I naturally inquired what had become of the 110 others, which had thus prematurely disappeared. Said bin Salim replied by showing a small pile of grain-bags, and by informing me that he had hired twenty porters for the down-march. He volunteered, it is true, in case I felt disposed to finish the Periplus of the Lake, to return to Kazeh and to superintend the transmission of our reserve supplies; as, however, he at the same time gave me to understand that he could not escort them back to Ujiji, I thanked him for his offer, and declined it.
We had expended upwards of a month—from the 10th April to the 13th May, 1858—in this voyage fifteen days outward bound, nine at Uvira, and nine in returning. The boating was rather a severe trial. We had no means of resting the back; the holds of the canoes, besides being knee-deep in water, were disgracefully crowded;—they had been appropriated to us and our four servants by Kannena, but by degrees, he introduced in addition to the sticks, spears, broken vases, pots, and gourds, a goat, two or three small boys, one or two sick sailors, the little slave-girl and the large sheep. The canoes were top-heavy with the number of their crew, and the shipping of many seas spoilt our tents, and besides, wetted our salt, and soddened our grain and flour; the gunpowder was damaged, and the guns were honeycombed with rust. Besides the splashing of the paddles and the dashing of waves, heavy showers fell almost every day and night, and the intervals were bursts of burning sunshine.
The discomfort of the halt was not less than that of the boat. At first we pitched tents near the villages, in tall, fetid grass, upon ground never level, where stones were the succedanea for tent-pegs stolen for fuel, and where we slept literally upon mire. The temperature inside was ever in extremes, now a raw rainy cold, then a steam-bath that damped us like an April shower. The villagers, especially in the remoter districts, were even more troublesome, noisy, and inquisitive, than the Wagogo. A “notable passion of wonder” appeared in them. We felt like baited bears: we were mobbed in a moment, and scrutinised from every point of view by them; the inquisitive wretches stood on tiptoe, they squatted on their hams, they bent sideways, they thrust forth their necks like hissing geese to vary the prospect. Their eyes, “glaring lightning-like out of their heads,” as old Homer hath it, seemed to devour us; in the ecstasy of curiosity they shifted from one Muzungu to his “brother,” till, like the well-known ass between the two bundles of hay, they could not enjoy either. They were pertinacious as flies, to drive them away was only to invite a return; whilst, worst grief of all, the women were plain, and their grotesque salutations resembled the “encounter of two dog-apes.” The Goanese were almost equally honoured, and the operation of cooking was looked upon as a miracle. At last my experience in staring enabled me to categorise the infliction as follows. Firstly, is the stare furtive, when the starer would peep and peer under the tent, and its reverse, the stare open. Thirdly, is the stare curious or intelligent, which, generally accompanied with irreverent laughter regarding our appearance. Fourthly, is the stare stupid, which denoted the hebete incurious savage. The stare discreet is that of sultans and great men; the stare indiscreet at unusual seasons is affected by women and children. Sixthly, is the stare flattering—it was exceedingly rare, and equally so was the stare contemptuous. Eighthly, is the stare greedy; it was denoted by the eyes restlessly bounding from one object to another, never tired, never satisfied. Ninthly, is the stare peremptory and pertinacious, peculiar to crabbed age. The dozen concludes with the stare drunken, the stare fierce or pugnacious, and finally the stare cannibal, which apparently considered us as articles of diet. At last, weary of the stare by day, and the tent by night, I preferred inhabiting a bundle of clothes in the wet hold of the canoe; this, at least, saved the trouble of wading through the water, of scrambling over the stern, and of making a way between the two close lines of grumbling and surly blacks that manned the paddle-benches; whenever, after a meaningless halt, some individual thought proper to scream out “Safári!” (journey!)
Curious to say, despite all these discomforts our health palpably improved. My companion, though still uncomfortably deaf, was almost cured of his blindness. When that ulcerated mouth, which rendered it necessary for me to live by suction—generally milk and water—for seventeen days, had returned to its usual state, my strength gradually increased. Although my feet were still swollen by the perpetual wet and by the painful funza or entozoon, my hands partially lost their numbness, and the fingers which before could hold the pen only for a few minutes were once more able freely to write and sketch. In fact, I date a slow but sensible progress towards a complete recovery of health from the days and nights spent in the canoe and upon the mud of the Tanganyika Lake. Perhaps mind had also acted upon matter; the object of my mission was now effected, and this thought enabled me to cast off the burden of grinding care with which the imminent prospect of a failure had before sorely laden me.